The Edge of Psychopathy
by TheYoshiGurl
Summary: AU Vignettes highlighting Rachel's life as she grows up and develops psychopathy. TRIGGER WARNING: Violence, Blood, Self-Harm, Suicide.


**Author's Notes:** This was something that I came up with recently. I wrote it in about an hour or two. Hopefully it sticks true to an actual psychopathic person. This has not been proofread or anything so if you see a mistake it's entirely my fault. Anyway, enjoy.

**TRIGGER WARNING:** Violence, Blood, Self-Harm, Suicide.

* * *

I was only six years old when I got my first pet. A lovely little Finch with feathers the colour of a spectacular rainbow. Such a pretty little thing it was. Small, quiet, manageable. Perfect for a little girl with her first pet. I named her Avis because it was the Latin word for bird - I was _such_ an original child, I know. I loved that bird dearly, and I loved my parents more for letting me have her. I fed her every day, changed her water, cleaned her cage, petted her, trained her, I _loved_ her. I might have loved her a little too much, poor Avis. One day I loved her too hard that I squeezed that pretty little head off of her struggling, dying body. Instead of crying I smiled. My pretty little birdy was just as pretty inside as she was outside. Her crimson red fluids stained my hands for days afterwards.

I was only six and a half years old when I lost my first pet. Mother and Father said that I had too much love to give.

* * *

At eight years old I lost my parents to a raging fire in their laboratory. Oh how I cried and cried and cried. Doctor Aldous Leekie took me in and looked after me from then on. I knew what I was, that man told me. Of course I understood at the time, Father had said I was a bright and intelligent little girl after all. After mourning my parents' deaths I grew quiet - cold and distant. I knew what I was. My own parents developed me in the laboratory they died in. Ironic isn't it? That the silly little laboratory created and took life. I was an experiment, a prototype for their outlandish scientific fantasies, along with countless others who were my biological identicals. At eight years old I knew what we were. I was self-aware. I _knew and it made me feel powerful_.

* * *

Ten years of age brought about more intelligence and knowledge about things little girls should not have access to. Growing up in a giant research facility allowed for a girl such as myself to meander and waltz through the halls as if she owned the place. I would own this place, in time. I would bide my time, and if I knew now the pay-off my patience rewarded me with then I would have been positively giddy. I was privy to DYAD's secrets - I was a secret, myself - although I was not actually allowed to know them. I was becoming smart, smarter than any of them - least of all Dr. Leekie - anticipated. I prided myself in tricking these intellectual adults, conning them out of their most well kept secrets.

* * *

I was thirteen the first time I made an employee cry and grovel at my feet. Oh, I felt so incredibly _powerful_ in that beautiful moment. This particular person was to harvest my biannual DNA samples that day. Of course I wasn't scared of the cold, sharp, prodding needles or the harmless electrodes, nor the person who was to collect the information. But that day, _that day_, I was feeling particularly cheeky. As soon as the woman prodded my arm with the generously sized needle I screamed. She panicked and I tensed, causing the needle rip down my arm and snap before staying lodged in my young, supple flesh. The look on the woman's face was priceless. I didn't feel a thing but if I were a third party witnessing this ordeal I would have thought it hurt. Pain was something that I was innately familiar with so I welcomed it with open arms. My precious, burgundy life force trickled out of the wound in thin rivers, dripping prettily on to the floor and created a mesmerising pool. I looked up to gage the horror on the woman's face, processing what she had done to me.

I must have looked crazy standing there with blood just pouring out of my arm, towering over the trembling scientist on the floor. I stepped closer to the cowering woman, moving comfortably into her personal space. I stared right into her terrified eyes and grinned. I drew my small hand up high into the air and let it fall, my palm connecting to the woman's cheek so hard that the contact produced a delightfully loud and painful cracking noise. I had split her cheek and lip with the few rings I was wearing on my fingers. The women landed in my ever growing pool of blood, too shocked from the attack that she didn't have time to react when I approached and pressed my sullied boot to her bloodstained face, squashing that fleshy head into the bloodied floor. I could see the glistening tears leak from her squinted eyes, mixing with the dark blood on her face and on the floor. I remember this day as the day I laughed so much for the first time since my parents had died five years prior. Maybe I was a little crazy…

* * *

Fifteen was the age when I first strangled someone. It felt so exhilarating to feel a person's life slip away as I constricted their airway and prevented the much needed oxygen to travel to the brain. The contracting muscles that quivered beneath my clenched fingers. It was another employee, surprise, surprise. It just felt so good to put those maggots in their place. Dr. Leekie had given me a stern talk about my actions when I was thirteen about what I did and why it was wrong. He thought that he could father me, as if my own Father hadn't died seven years before. But everything he said did not process in my ever expanding filing cabinet of brain that I possessed. That talk never stopped me from doing what I wanted.

So, fifteen years old was the next time that I had severely injured another employee. This insufferable man - the disgusting rat - tried to have his perverted way with me when I had been cornered in my workroom. Oh, if only he knew what I was truly capable of. He may have been an academic but I was well versed in charming my victims with my diplomatic smiles and coy looks before slithering in and biting to kill. This scientist was only able to grab my hips when I gripped his head and plunged my thumbs into his prone brown eyeballs. I felt the slimy texture of the man's ocular organs and only pressed further when he began to shout and flail. Before he could retaliate I grabbed him by his neck and squeezed as hard as I could, staring into his red-stained orbs as they flickered to try and regain sight. The man wheezed and struggled for breath as my hands tightened and tightened, crushing the trachea and his ability to breathe properly. Even if I had the mercy to let go, coughing would not allow him the privilege of precious oxygen. I laughed and laughed and laughed as his bloodshot eyes slowly rolled back into his head and his hands finally slipped from my body. I felt no remorse or guilt for taking that man's life. Had it not been for Dr. Leekie entering at the most inopportune time that man would have died. He deserved nothing less than death, dealt by my hands alone. Technically the whole issues constituted as self-defence, yet it was still deemed as an overreaction by Dr. Leekie.

* * *

At eighteen I was released from my therapy sessions after showing improving behaviour. I had been sent to therapy after the strangling ordeal so that I could be diagnosed with whatever mental illness I apparently had. Three years of pretending to improve definitely took its toll on me, yet I was able to fool the intolerable psychiatrist. I had to pretend that I was taking my prescribed medication and show that I did not intend to harm anymore employees. I also was required to endure that woman's drivel about my feelings and where my illness could have stemmed from. I didn't care in the least about what she was talking about, rather focusing on getting out of those damned therapy sessions. It took a lot of hard work but as a legal adult, and showing 'improvement' on my social skills, I was able to lead my own life. Now I was careful with who, when, where and how I dealt with my next victims so that I did not run into any more hindrances. Although I would not conduct another bout of violence until I was much older. I spent the next few years - my first years as an adult - premeditating every single attack I would eventually execute. I planned everything so that the possibility of anyone discovering my leisure activity was an impossibility. I calculated the survival rate of each victim and, I noted with satisfaction, that every single one was a zero.

* * *

Age twenty-four was the age I finally killed someone. It was as if adrenaline was the only thing coursing through my veins for the week leading up to my execution date as well as a week after. The first person I targeted was one of the first scientists I had met who essentially kept me locked in a hypothetical cage for the better part of my depressing childhood. Now frail and old, I had no trouble killing them effortlessly in their office. I had acquired a number of questionable drugs, but the one I used was an all-time favourite: cyanide. Just one tablet of cyanide instead of his usual leg pain medication was all it took for him to die in a matter of seconds. I watched from outside the office with uncaring eyes. Good riddance.

* * *

Now at twenty-nine years old I finally have the pleasure of meeting my 'sisters'. Sarah being the first, her volatile nature infuriates me to no end, yet I don't let it show. Oh my special tendencies are quickly mounting and if I am not careful I will most likely slip up. I cannot afford to deviate from my schedule. I discover that Sarah has a daughter. A biological one. _Kira_. I longed for a child of my own, I had grown an obsession with the idea since as long as I can remember. It almost overshadowed everything in my life. And now that Sarah has her daughter, and they are in a precarious position I can take my chance to take the young girl. I snatch her from the secluded hospital and take her to the room I occupied when I was a little girl in the DYAD institute. I feel something strange and painful in my chest when Kira flinches from my touch. What does she see when she looks at me? Has her mother tainted her mind with pretences of who I am? I recognise this soul-crushing feeling as disappointment. In what or who? Myself. I also discover that my Father is alive and well. We talk over tea and before I know it he is slipping from life quickly. Anger and rage bubble over as I shake him violently, demanding that he stay and not leave me again. This was not something I had anticipated and it enrages me further for not seeing it coming. After my emotions have been unleashed like a dam wall breaking and leaking, I leave the room quickly and enter my new office. My movements are uncharacteristically erratic and jerky as I start to break down within the glass walls of the white room. I violently push every item off the desk, I grab a chair and throw it into one of the glass display cabinets and flinch. I grab a loose sheet of paper and a pen. I do the only thing I can do and plan, plan, plan. My handwriting deviates from the usual neat, cursive letters to chicken scratch as I concentrate on my next target.

* * *

At almost thirty years old I got everything in order for my very last victim.

**Date:** 21st June 2014

**Time:** 23:00

**Location:** DYAD Institute

**Method:** Cyanide pill

**Notes:** Make it as violent as possible

…

And at 11 o'clock at night on the 21st of June I walk into my trashed office and sit at my desk, calm and collected. I take out the crumpled note and re-read my almost illegible scrawl before taking out a small container filled with cyanide pills as well as a sharp knife. I lay the items carefully out on the desk and adjust the small mirror situated across from me so that I can see myself and all my imperfections. I pick up the knife and smile ruefully at my cruel reflection. I place the blade at the desensitised flesh of my left arm before making several quick cuts. Blood is drawn out and dribbles down from the self-inflicted wounds. I cannot feel the pain, like before, and I continue until there are four identical cuts, evenly spaced, along my arm before mirroring it on my right arm. The cuts aren't deep so that I'll die from sudden blood loss. I drag the knife's tip up my neck and to my flawless face. I lean forward towards the mirror as if I am applying make up and draw the knife precisely along my skin so that the cuts are symmetrical: vertical slashes from my bottom eyelids down to my jaw. I put the bloodied knife back down on the desk before popping open the container. I pick up each pill individually, yet quickly so that I can finish my procedure before I am not able to. I slip each little pill into each of the cuts on both my arms. A sit back against the leather chair and breathe deeply. I can feel the pills dissolve into my bloodstream as my breathing picks up. I look down at my skin and see that it has taken on a cherry red hue. _It's working_. And only a few seconds later I feel my body convulse violently, my consciousness slipping away rapidly. Before I can think or react everything go-

* * *

_The crumpled note on the desk opens up and flattens against the bloodied surface, slowly absorbing the spilled blood. At the very bottom of the page in large and thick writing is:_

**Target: **Rachel Duncan.


End file.
